Laptop for production

[futuristic]

I'm in the market for a new laptop and my brother offered to sell his 2010 Macbook Pro to me, it has 2.66ghz i7, 8GB of ram, and 5400 rpm hard drive. I have just enough to buy from him so i was wondering if i should wait and save for a couple more months for a newer model, or do you guys think this one will suffice for years to come till i can afford another?

[milkman3399]

I would definately get it. I'm running Ableton Live 9 on a 2011 Macbook Air with just 2GB ram. That sounds like a great computer to work on.

[dripindustries]

Agreed, the 2010 MBPs are great machines. Plenty of connectivity and enough power to run Ableton. I have a late 2009 model but I upgraded the RAM to 8 gigs. It was about 80 bucks at crucial.com

One thing I would definitely recommend is upgrading the hard drive. I put a 480Gig SSD drive (also crucial.com) in my MBP and it was a total game changer. Regular Hard "Disk" drives are the cause of a LOT of sluggishness. Especially when the drive hits the 70-80% full mark.

[Bostad]

I'd go for it, and go for 8gb after a while

[Tarekith]

If you only have to save for a couple more months, I'd do that and get a newer one personally. While definitely not a bad laptop at all, that one is already 4 years old which is about the limit I'd consider buying used Apple computers. Apple updates things so often these days, seems like you're setting yourself up for obsolescence.

Just my $.02 though, and fwiw, I'd still rather have a 4 year old MBP than a new windows laptop

[botstein]

If you only have to save for a couple more months, I'd do that and get a newer one personally. While definitely not a bad laptop at all, that one is already 4 years old which is about the limit I'd consider buying used Apple computers. Apple updates things so often these days, seems like you're setting yourself up for obsolescence.

Just my $.02 though, and fwiw, I'd still rather have a 4 year old MBP than a new windows laptop

+1000 I'm with Tarekith 100% on this one.

[Polygon]

Agree with Tarekith and Botstein.
Wait and get the new models (or you could get last year's refurb Retina 15, great machine).
The 2010 models were the first with mobile i7s, and heated up over 100 degrees celsius under load. This wasn't inherently bad for the processors, but it was uncomfortable for the user. In the long term however, high temperatures on the MoBo can affect other components, which aren't meant to get THAT hot. One glaring example is the battery. This is why i would steer clear of used 2010 mbps.